ARCHITECTURE GRADS SHARE THEIR VISIONS

Arabia Cultural Center

Loay Alkhifi, 26, from Saudi Arabia

Plans: To return home, find a job and perhaps teach architecture

“The purpose of this study is to reshape the distorted reputation the world has of Islam, especially after 9/11. … The goal of this study is to empower the design to accomplish a new reliable source of media in the United States that represents the cultural values of Saudi Arabia as a Muslim country.“

Alkhifi designed an Islamic center that would be located behind the San Diego Convention Center, roughly where the proposed $520 million expansion is proposed.

“I wanted to increase awareness about the culture,” he said, and he chose the waterfront site because of its prominence.

As with all student projects, designs are purely theoretical and not intended to compete with anything in the “real world” of planners, politicians and bankers.

Alkhifi imagines three exhibit halls, a 200-seat auditorium and a mosque — including one with transparent walls so that non-Muslims can watch from the outside and not feel excluded.

“I shared it with the Muslim Student Association at UC San Diego, and they liked the idea of having a cultural center,” he said.

Chuck Crawford, NewSchool’s graduate thesis coordinator, said the location might not be so unrealistic in case the convention center isn’t expanded.

“It’s a dead space now that nobody goes to,” he said. “That’s the fault of the convention center.”

Destination Morley Field

Cody Osborne, 25, from Buffalo, N.Y.

Plans: To return home and take his disc golf course with him

“Many different areas are suffering due to the economic crash with the past few years, and public parks are no different. This project brings the hope of luring the world championship tournaments to the San Diego region, which will not only be good for local tourism but also for the local economy as well.“

Osborne is an avid fan of Frisbee golf, or more generically “disc golf,” and he applied his passion to designing a new clubhouse for what he would like to see at Morley Field on the eastern side of Balboa Park.

“I want this to be a major hub for tournaments,” he said. “This would be the ‘mother ship’ and the other courses (in San Diego) would be the babies.”

He said the clubhouse would include a pavilion, restrooms and a pro shop, along with maintenance space.

Crawford said Osborne’s project might have been even more impressive if he had collaborated with a landscape architecture student to design a new course for players.

“I was a little disappointed in the project because he ended up working primarily on the architecture of the clubhouse,” Crawford said. “I think students are afraid to do something that isn’t a building. I think the distinctions are blurring a bit and he could have designed architectural spaces that molded the ground plane.”

Passion drives architects, he acknowledged, and too often veteran designers get caught up in the technicalities and legalities of a project.

“I think that’s one of the reasons so many architects teach part-time is that they want to maintain that passion,” he said.

B Street Pier Redevelopment

Shaun Lynch, 30, from Santa Barbara

Plans: He currently works for a high-end residential builder in Rancho Santa Fe

“There is disconnection between the city and the bay; B Street Pier is isolated and cut off from the community, and with a declining cruise ship industry and a port in debt, this space remains poorly maintained and underutilized. Through reprogramming and redevelopment of this space, the pier becomes a place of community gathering, enhancing public life.”

Lynch proposes to integrate the pier into the North Embarcadero Visionary Plan enhancements, now under construction, by planting parkland on the deck, siting the San Diego Symphony’s Summer Pops concerts there, relocating the San Diego Maritime Museum and its Star of India and, most dramatically, cutting a channel through the middle to improve access to the water. He also had in mind attracting shops and restaurants to the pier.

“I went to Copenhagen on exchange for three months,” he said. “In Europe they’re doing a ton of waterfront developments.”

Upon his return, he wanted to see how he could accomplish the same here.

Crawford said Lynch was one of several students who felt a need to reclaim more space for the public in the city.

“We have a city that’s pretty privatized and one that’s kind of walled off from this amazing waterfront,” Crawford said.

Occupy My Thesis

John Martinez, 25, from Tehachapi

Plans: To get into city architectural design work

“The inseparable ties of our civic expression and civic space have become strained since the end of World War II. The rise of suburban America has generated a literal separation of people with one another and people with their representatives in government.”

Martinez proposes to bridge the gap by creating a civic plaza, beach and council chambers on the grounds of the County Administration Center between Harbor Drive and Pacific Highway.

Elected officials would maintain offices on an undulating second floor within easy reach of the public milling around on the ground floor.

“Altogether, the goals of connection, interaction and transition provide the foundation for the future of San Diego’s Civic Center.”